I'm sure many of you out there already know this, especially those of you from the British Commonwealth of Nations (kylie and Sue, I'm talking to you, and made a little rhyme besides), and most especially those of you ensconced in the United Kingdom itself, but I didn't know until today that Catherine of Aragon (pictured above), first wife of Henry VIII whom he divorced in order to marry Anne Boleyn, whom he eventually beheaded (Anne, not Catherine), was the daughter of none other than Ferdinand and Isabella, yes, that Ferdinand and Isabella, benefactors of one Cristoforo Columbo, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, to be exact.
Catherine was betrothed at age 3 to the Prince of Wales, Henry's older brother Arthur, whom she eventually married but it was a short-lived marriage as Arthur died five months later. A few years later Catherine married Henry and became Queen Consort, the exact position in which Camilla Parker-Bowles Windsor-Mountbatten, Duchess of Cornwall, may find herself one day in the not-too-distant future, unless her husband Charles Philip Arthur George, Prince of Wales, should pre-decease his mother, the current reigning monarch, Elizabeth II, in which case she (Camilla, not Elizabeth) will not become Queen Consort but merely the Queen Stepmother, if they let her be Queen at all, which is doubtful.
The preceding paragraphs contain two of my longest sentences ever, but it simply cannot be helped. Well, it can, but what I have written, I have written. I am not in a mood to revise this morning.
It occurs to me that Camilla is more like Wallis Warfield Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, than Catherine of Aragon, being a divorcee and not a widow.
I love all things English except Yorkshire Pudding, whom I merely tolerate, and Mick Jagger. (I’m just pulling Yorkshire Pudding’s leg here; actually I rather like him. Why else would I have included a poem by him over there in the sidebar?)
A fun fact each day keeps the undertaker away.
